Chess Lessons Exposed: A Tale Of 3 Offside Knights

This series is about chess lessons and how a chess teacher tries to push key points home.

If you are looking for a chess teacher, don’t grab anyone that comes along! Take your time, take a lesson or two from various teachers so you can get a feel for their different teaching styles, and you’ll eventually find just the right teacher for you.

Remember: if you and the teacher have zero chemistry, then look for another teacher. There is no fault for either side, but a successful teacher-student relationship is all about great communication (on many levels). If that doesn’t exist, both parties need to move on.

5...a6 and 5...Nc6 and 5...Nf6 and 5...d6 are common, but I’ve never seen 5...Nh6 before. What would be your thoughts after seeing 5...Nh6? What are its plusses and minuses?

Test 2

After 5...Nh6 White didn’t play 6.d4. Instead she just developed, which I think would be the choice of many players (masters included):

Now it’s time for your homework. Assess this position, and then assess the positions after both 11.Qxd7 (greed) and 11.Ba3 (weakening d6).

Answer to Test 1

Offside knight one (h6)

An odd-looking move, but “odd” doesn’t necessarily mean “bad.” The fact that a grandmaster played it forces one to give it respect. But how much respect? My thoughts would go like this:

Black has to be careful that this knight isn’t stranded on the side. If I were White, I would do my best to keep it there since, while it’s on h6 it won’t be able to work together with the rest of its army.

The knight has three possible futures: 1) An eventual ...f7-f5, and if the pawn is captured (exf5) then ...Nxf5 turns the offside knight into a very well-placed piece. 2) ...Ng4, but at the moment that’s ludicrous since the knight would be chased to f6, a square that could have been reached in one move instead of three. 3) ...f7-f6 followed by ...Nf7. That makes sense since the f6-pawn blocks the a1-h8 diagonal while the knight on f7 hits key squares on d6 and e5.